1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to wireless cellular network systems. More particularly, the present invention relates to assessing network service impact from a customer perspective rather than the traditional network perspective and indicating results of the assessment as part of an alarm notification.
2. Related Art
Traditionally, telecommunications network operators use extensive network management systems to collect, process, and display equipment alarm data for network management engineers. Equipment alarm data normally indicates an equipment malfunction. An equipment malfunction is also referred to as a fault. For example, network equipment may be designed to indicate when a card, circuit, or chassis has failed. Even in relatively simple networks, equipment alarms can generate a large quantity of complex, often interrelated, data. The data must be processed to prevent significant customer service discontinuities.
To help organize the volume and complexity of the incoming network fault data, network operators use sophisticated analysis engines or knowledge-based systems to convert the raw alarm data into usable, real-time information. In spite of this processing, however, network management users must have significant experience and insight into the network to understand the significance of alarm data and identify the criticality of a failure. Thus, what is required is a system to simplify the task of assessing the incoming network fault data.